Quote:
|
YMMV ... I have watched that segment multiple times, and it's clear to me that his discussion of push-pull is integral with his discussion of the Weaver stance.
|
It does seem very clear and while it is discussed along with the Weaver Stance--which is natural since that's where it was introduced, it seems obvious that the comments stand on their own, even outside the context of the Weaver Stance.
"...you're pushing with this hand and pulling with this hand. What they were trying to do back in the day was to get more control over the handgun and they went at it the wrong way.
The thing about opposing forces--it sounds really good until you screw it up. So if you have a little bit of less technique right here, pushing and pulling, you get weird oscillations on the front sight and it's not repeatable. If it's not repeatable, it's not competition worthy, and it's not...it's just not worthy of your time. So, we got rid of that a long time ago.
If you really watch the true professionals of the game, they're going to stand with the Isosceles Stance and if you do anything less you're going to be behind the curve and, uh, it's not even worth training for."
Let's see what another top-level shooter does and recommends.
Here's another video on the topic of grip and technique--this one by Bob Vogel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45QhpvY9LZc
At 3:20 he starts talking about the force he exerts on the gun.
..."now the actual pressure that I'm using here is in with both hands. So my right hand is torquing this way <<twists right hand to the left>> and my left hand is countering that <<twists left hand to the right>> and torquing that way. So what that does is it really locks it in there.
The gun--in recoil--obviously comes back. What we don't want to do is help it back. The older technique--more the Weaver-style shooting that was popular in the 1980s was more the push-pull method. I don't believe in pulling--that was the method of pushing with this hand <<moves right hand>> and pulling with this hand <<moves left hand>> to steady the gun. And it may somewhat steady the gun--but when you're pulling with this hand <<lifts/pulls gun back with left hand>>--the gun's already coming back. Why do you want to help it back in recoil?
It just--it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. So all my momentum is forward, I'm torquing in with both hands and again I'm just--I'm locked out here--really, really solid."
Here's a video with Rob Leatham talking about the push-pull. He points out that the nature of the grip that the support hand has on the pistol demands a small amount of pull for the hand to stay in position and not get left hanging out in space when the gun recoils back. But he makes it clear that it's not very much pull at all. He demonstrates with another shooter doing the shooting so we don't have to worry that his size/strength/shooting skill is affecting the results.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNNlb7QjfGI
Here's a video with Ernest Langdon talking about grip and stance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VP4X6FVa4E
Toward the end he also talks about a "slight amount of isometric tension" caused by a slight pull of the support hand--but in the context of maintaining a proper grip (like Leatham's comments) not in the context of recoil control. His earlier comments make it clear that recoil control by the support hand is by friction on the side of the gun. Like Leatham talking about the two hands pinching the gun between them.
I think it's clear that push-pull
as a recoil control method has fallen out of favor with the top-level shooters. There is some slight amount of pull/isometric tension required by the support hand to keep the grip intact, but that's quite a different thing.
I think a big part of the reason for the push-pull being introduced in the first place is easily explained by thinking about what the context was. At the time the Weaver was introduced, handgun competition was basically bullseye.
In bullseye, everyone knew that the strong hand was supposed to be as relaxed as possible. That's what provided maximum accuracy and recoil control wasn't really a big issue.
The push-pull was an attempt to solve the dilemma of controlling recoil while keeping the strong hand very relaxed as a holdover from bullseye
As the two-handed technique developed and evolved, it became obvious that the strong hand needed to grip the pistol quite firmly for the best results. In fact, now it's pretty common for the top level shooters to talk about gripping the pistol with the strong hand as firmly as possible without shaking. Miculek and Langdon, for example are two that have explicitly made that comment.
It used to be that instructors taught a very light grip with the strong hand, with the support hand making up almost all of the gripping strength. That meant that the strong hand was reduced to mostly only being able to push on the gun--since it wasn't gripping the gun tightly. With that limitation, it was necessary to come up with a way to control recoil with the support hand and it made sense to try to pull with the weak hand since about all the strong hand could do while mostly relaxed was push on the gun.
As it became obvious that a firm grip with the strong hand gave better results, it also became obvious that there was no need to pull with the support hand--both could be used to counter recoil. Other benefits (besides improved recoil control) then became obvious. The big one, mentioned by Miculek, is that recoil behavior became more symmetric and repeatable making it easier/faster to bring the gun back onto target after muzzle lift.